August 4, 2018
When I was growing up in New Zealand, golf was not an expensive or elite sport. My mother played it and was an excellent golfer. She belonged to a small country club with a nine-hole course. My father also joined the club but his heart was never in it. He had no patience and would whack at the ball, willy nilly.
At one point, one of my brothers put a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said: ‘Old golfers never die. They just lose their drive.’ It took Dad a while to realise that another brother had crossed out ‘drive’ and replaced it with ‘balls’.
Later, after one of his trips back to Scotland to see his family, Dad got a new bumper sticker. It was a tartan-patterned hand giving the V sign with the words: ‘Up yer kilt!’